A reliable network set-top box, glory box M321 evaluation experience

In the network set-top box market, various kinds of open-end guns have been inflicted. Manufacturers have resorted to all sorts of tricks, some playing techniques, some engaging in facial expressions, and some walking away from ecology. However, these are not of any use, and the user experience is really good. , As the glory brand's first Internet set-top box, MediaQ M321 inherited the advantages of Huawei's system design and technology resources. From its model, it can also be seen that it is inextricably linked with Huawei's secret box, whether it is the hardware quality or the UI system. Experience, this box gives a more profound impression, in the author's view, this is a relatively balanced appearance and performance of all aspects of the network box, cost is relatively high, as a daily home is a very good choice. Let's take a look at this sophisticated network core set-top box, Glory Box MediaQ M321 evaluation experience.

Product parameters

From the point of view of parameters, this box highlight is also more, it is equipped with Huawei's own set-top box quad-core chip Hi3798M, built-in HiVPX4 professional decoder, exclusive Impress engine picture quality enhancement technology, decoding capacity than ordinary quad-core box increased by 50%, The maximum support code rate is 240Mbps, which fully supports all major 4K video formats. Although there is no 5GHz Wifi in the wireless connection, but 300M complementary dual antenna design is used, the 2.4Ghz Wifi rate is 100% higher than the single antenna, and the sensitivity is increased by 30%. Enhances the capability of signal passing through the wall, realizes 2x improvement of data throughput performance, high bit rate 4K transmission is easier, and supports the latest H.265 video encoding hard solution; In addition, in order to improve the remote control of infrared remote control, the box The shell adopts a penetrating panel design and achieves 360° remote control. Although the parameters do not represent everything, it is enough to make people expect the performance of this box.

Out of the box: packaging fashion fresh and focus on environmental protection

Most Internet companies have their own distinct characteristics of product packaging. Glory is no exception. The packaging has a high degree of recognition. As a product of the top 500 companies, Glory Box also attaches great importance to environmental protection in packaging, and uses recycled pulp to make and Soybean ink printing, to avoid pollution of the natural environment.

The whole box is sky-blue, the front is relatively simple, the middle marked glory box words, the lower right corner of Huawei and Glory's brand identity everyone is also familiar, the national proud of the national brand, on the back simply introduces the glory box performance characteristics, it is worth noting Is the SOYINK certification mark, which shows that Huawei is also a company with social responsibility while continuously innovating value.

PS: SOYINK certification is printed using soy ink. Soyink or Vegetableink is a vegetable oil such as salad oil. It has excellent fluidity and coloring properties, high transparency, vivid colors, and is not easily discolored. Good, in line with the standard specifications of printing ink, of course, the biggest feature is the very good environmental performance, in a large number of developed countries such as Europe and the United States, the current domestic applications are still relatively small

The inner box adopts a two-layer design. The upper layer houses the box mainframe, the lower layer places accessories and documents, and the middle partition of the inner box identifies a lot of items, including abstract drawings of standard accessories and optional accessories, box interface labels, etc., in the box At the same time, we can learn more about the product. The accessory layer uses cardboard to divide into three blocks to place different objects. This saves more resources than the use of separate accessory boxes that are used in many products.

All objects include Glory Box*1, Remote Controller*1, Power Adapter*1, HDMI Cable*1, Battery*2, Manual*1, Warranty Card*1, Instruction Manual Document is printed in black and blue, and the entire sheet is folded into Book, but no standard base, must be purchased separately, a little regret

The materials and workmanship of the accessories are very good. The input of the power adapter 180~240V 0.5A and the output of 5.1V 2.1A are also the standard configurations of most of the current boxes. The 11-button remote control of this box does not use the button battery, but it is used instead. The 2nd 7th battery has longer endurance, but it also increases the weight of the remote control. It looks a little bigger.

Product: exquisite workmanship details in place

The details of this box reflect the design and workmanship of the big factory. The overall black and square body, with a heavy feel, gives a good impression, and exquisite workmanship, humane design, can Saying that the details are excellent.

The box surface is a bright surface design, a little easy to get rid of gray and scratch, in addition to the interface and honor logo, no other decoration, looks stylish and simple, the back of the parameters and logo is simple and clear, the upper and lower two large lattice pattern mat Can play a non-slip effect, but also a kind of decoration, this kind of practicality and decorative design reflects the integrity of the Dachang factory

Most of the interfaces are located on the back. Only the MicroSD card slot is located on the side, but the overall layout is compact, but it does not affect each other. For such a small box, the interface is very rich. Each USB port and MicroSD card slot is equipped with one, especially The standard RJ45 network port is still a little unexpected. It can be seen from the above figure that this box is really thin, only a little bit thicker than the RJ45 network port, and each interface has a tag name, MicroSD card slot Also marked the card insertion direction, these small details are in place

The box adopts an integrated design through the panel shell to achieve 360 ​​° infrared signal reception, although many boxes now use Bluetooth remote control, but in the cost to increase some, and practicality does not actually increase too much, and on the phone Wifi remote control, and there is not much advantage, the gap between the upper shell and the floor is very small, the curvature of the corner and the edge of the chamfer workmanship is also very detailed, also reflects the Dachang factory work standards

The size that can be grasped by a palm is very delicate in a commercially available box, but it is a heavy feeling in the hands. It can be seen that the inherent material and design are not vague, and it can be described as a product with sincerity.

Experience: System smooth video playback powerful

A successful box does not necessarily have the strongest configuration, but there must be a user-friendly UI system. Glory Box relies on Huawei's powerful technical strength. These years have accumulated a lot of experience in the development of the Android system, not only in the mobile phone UI. The development of the system has achieved great success. In the development of the TV UI system, similar efforts have been made. However, in this regard, Huawei is relatively low-key and does not advocate the use of publicity. The used talents will be deeper. The feelings, the UI system of this glory box is easy to operate, and the whole is relatively smooth. Some personalized designs also give the box a lot of experience.

Turn on the power supply of the box and connect the HDMI cable. Since this box has a network port, if you place it in a location with a cable interface, you can save the connection of Wifi, and the transmission speed is faster and more stable. Lights are always connected successfully

The overall UI style of the box is not the same as the similar WIN8 list used by most similar products. A large number of rounded icons are used to make the system look more comfortable. The source of the program is to cooperate with Galaxy TV (GITV) Co., Ltd. as a domestic product. One of seven Internet TV integrated broadcast control platforms, GITV has a powerful technology research and development capabilities and massive video resources

Video playback has more perfect options, you can choose the definition, perform a variety of commonly used operations, more distinctive is offline cache, the program you want to see is downloaded to the local mobile memory, and animation section has a special for children Parental control function, you can set the child's age and open period, this feature is not in the settings, but in the animation section, although easier to find, but the parental control is not just for the animation, feel more reasonable in the settings

The main UI of this box is fixed, and it cannot customize the application added to the main UI. This highlights the provision of video content, but the functions of the application are not weakened. In the application section, all applications of the box can be applied. Startup and management operations, several built-in applications are also more practical, but the number of applications in the system application market is relatively small, applications can be installed into the system through USB and third-party TV management applications

Several built-in application experience is still relatively good, such as the media center can manage the audio and video files in each connected device. When the music is played, it will automatically switch to the screen saver mode. The file manager uses the form of a list to connect The equipment for file management, this method is more passive in the case of more files, page turning is more difficult, and the other is not the bulk of the operation also reduces the management efficiency, in addition, like the remote control learning function is also more personalized, However, I can't use TV's remote control to set a bit regret

The box supports mouse and keyboard operations. If you want to better experience the network box, it is recommended to install a third-party application market. This will make it easier to search for the desired video on demand, live broadcast, games and other applications, thanks to the powerful chip of the box. Group, all kinds of applications have a better performance, but in the case of open more applications, there will still be a short pause, but the internal seems to have a mechanism to automatically clean up the background application, but did not find the setting item, millet box The system's practice is to press the HOME key to bring up the task manager, which can clean up the background application and it is worth learning from.

The options in the setting items are more conventional and there is no special personalized setting. It is worth mentioning that there is a video quality setting in the playback settings. After opening, the quality of the screen can be improved. Before and after the setting can be seen The screen contrast, but can not be displayed in the screenshot

â—† video playback test â—†

Regarding the performance of video playback, Glory Box has a built-in HiVPX4 professional decoder, and the decoding capability is still relatively strong. The dynamic contrast enhancement and color enhancement technology unique to the Imprex engine make the overall picture more vivid and the dynamic effect performance has a certain degree of improvement. .

Hunan Satellite TV live show HD program source screenshot

Small Age 3: Screenshot of the 1080p Source

Journey to the West 4K film source screenshot

In the original movie source area and 4K source area, they have found several special tests. Since my broadband is only Unicom 8M, I can't meet the 4K online playback conditions. Basically, I can start buffering in just a few minutes, and I’m just In fact, due to the source of the film, personal feeling does not reach the real 4K level, and the definition of the screen is not very high.

With the existing resources at hand, the 4K video demonstrations of two LG TVs were selected for testing. Both videos are in mp4 format, and the bit rates are relatively high. See the following figure for details.

Two 4K video file information tested

4K source Arctic fragment

4K slice food atelier fragment

Just copied the video directly into the U disk directly into the box for playback, Catron more powerful, then copy the video into the box flash memory, playback is no longer stuck, but the remote control still has a certain sense of delay when remote control operation , but the overall quality of the effect should still be out, and later tested the video into the shared router with the LAN router, playing the test, also appeared in the case of Caton, it seems that in the 4K video playback, data Transmission is still the biggest bottleneck, but the popularity of 4K video will still take some time. For today's popular 1080p HD video, the playback of this box is not an issue.

After 2 hours of test video toss, the temperature of the box was measured. At 28°C ambient temperature, the temperature of the top surface of the box was basically kept at 42°C. The temperature was still a bit high, but video playback, especially 4K video playback Very burning equipment, this result seems to be more normal

Judging from the actual use experience of the box, ordinary 1080p video playback and other functions can meet the daily use requirements. If you need to watch 4K video, one is to ensure adequate network bandwidth, and the other is to solve the problem of transmission. Question, using Wifi to watch 4K video is not a good choice, but the box itself has strong capabilities in video decoding and optimization. Even ordinary 1080p high-definition video can be beautified, resulting in better quality. Experience.

to sum up

This glorious box exquisite workmanship, design in place, appearance in line with the public aesthetics, the source of the film selected GITV cooperation, resources are very rich, performance is more prominent performance, its built-in HiVPX4 decoder chip, integrated Imprex image optimization engine, And Dolby Digital audio, even in the face of high-rate 4K video sources, still can play more smoothly, but the premise is that the file is in the machine's flash memory, and for the box's UI system, its characteristics are also very clear, around the video Play to optimize the design, in general, this box's experience is very good, is a network set-top box suitable for daily use of users who have certain requirements for video playback.